Why is pearl symmetrical and round?

For centuries, researchers have wondered how oysters grow perfectly round, symmetrical pearls around irregular grains of sand or pieces of debris. This curiosity led a team of researchers to show that oysters and other mollusks use a complex process to grow such jewelry! A process that follows mathematical laws in nature.

How are pearls formed?

Making pearls inside the oysters' soft body is a kind of oyster's defense system to protect itself by preventing damage by building nook layers around the oyster's soft privacy! Studies on October 19 this year show that each new layer of nacre that forms on an asymmetrical body trapped in an oyster is exactly the same as the previous layers and carefully covers the irregularities to form a round, symmetrical pearl. Be formed! Laura Otter, a biogeochemist at the National University of Australia, says that Nacker is the most beautiful, arcuate, shiny substance we see inside some seashells or on the body of a pearl.

What causes the astonishing pearl symmetry? Layers of Nacker sit on it!) relies on the balance of two basic capabilities in the oyster bed. In this regard, the first case in the symmetrical growth of pearls is that the oyster corrects the growth deviations that appear in the form of pearls and prevents the spread and continuation of those changes in other layers; In addition, pearl oysters have the ability to modify the thickness of the nacre layers, so that if a thicker layer is formed, the next layer will respond to it. It will be thinner. Such a process helps the pearl to create and maintain a suitable and similar thickness in thousands of layers so that it looks completely round and uniform. In general, without such adjustments, pearls would look like sedimentary rocks, with a hollow, non-spherical shape. Focuses on the sample and interacts with the molecules. Scattered photons are then studied. For a closer look, researchers examined keshi pearls collected from the oyster pearl oyster (Pinctada imbricata fucata) at a coastal pearl farm in eastern Australia. In this regard, they used a wire diamond saw to cut pearls into cross sections! They then examined the brilliant jewels using Raman spectroscopy, a non-destructive technique for examining the structure of pearls. It is interesting to know that the sample pearl of this research group had 2615 layers that were made during 548 days of deposition!

This cross section of the pearl keshi (Pearl) shows that the naker layers grow perfectly symmetrically around an irregular mass of debris.

It is interesting to know that this phenomenon also exists in the discussion of seismic activity! The earth's roar may seem coincidental, but it is actually related to the earth's seismic activity. Robert Hovden, a scientist and materials engineer at the University of Michigan, acknowledges that pink noise also appears in classical music, heart rate monitoring and brain activity monitoring!

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Concluding remarks

Finally, it should be emphasized that Knocker has the ability to self-repair and when a defect occurs, without using From any external pattern, it improves itself in several layers. It may seem simple at first glance, but these humble creatures are making incredibly light and hard materials every day that are far better than the pearls made by our technology. Using calcium, carbonate and protein, oysters make materials 3,000 times harder than Nacker's ingredients. So understand how to make pearls It could inspire the next generation of super-efficient or heat-resistant materials to build spacecraft.

Main Source: PNAS

Source: Science News